Elder Tanner Smith - Ghana Accra Mission

Hey Parents! Sorry no update last week. We had a zone conference on Monday which took our P-day away. We had Zone Training the next day on Tuesday in Tema. Tema isn't to far from Batsonaa but if you get on the road at the wrong time, it is the worst traffic you will ever experience. Normally we have to stop in Ashaiman to get a Tro Tro to get to our area from Tema. We couldn't get a Tro Tro from Tema to Ashaiman tro tro station though, so we took a taxi. We were stuck in traffic from Tema to Ashaiman for 2 HOURS. I was insisting that we should just walk because it's only a couple of kilometers, but we decided to stay in the taxi. After finally getting to Ashaiman Station it was 5 PM and didn't get back home till 8 PM. I honestly think I could have walked from Tema to our area in half the time it took to drive, it was by far the worst traffic I've ever been in. To make things better it was light off when we got back to our area. We were supposed to email after our zone training, but because it was so late and it was light off we weren't able to. We asked to get permission to come in to the Internet cafe early on Wednesday but our mission president told us not to. So that's the long story of why I couldn't email you last week.

To start with the sad news, my recent convert Jennifer died last week Thursday (2nd of June). She was the first person I baptized here in Batsonaa and it was heart breaking. She was 38 years old, married and had three children of the ages 4, 7, and 9. We baptized the Husband and wife together and then a few weeks ago baptized the oldest child as well as another child that stays with them. The really sad part about it is how she died... She traveled to her home village in the Bush and came back with ''Aba Medicine'' this is like tribal medicine and can be extremely dangerous. She was complaining that her chest was hurting and her family members in her home town got her the medicine. She came home on Tuesday and we were able to meet with her and her family so teach them and she was completely fine. Wednesday morning she started her medication and started to feel sick a little bit. She ignored her husbands advice to go to a hospital. We all went to our ward's mid week class and she seemed to be full of fatigue, but still looked okay. After the midweek class we went home and got a call about 1 hour later from her good friend who is also a member saying that she is vomiting and fell unconscious. We rushed to the house as fast as possible and they were already at the hospital. We took a taxi straight to the hospital and met her husband and her friend. She was in a coma and was throwing up all night. We gave her a priesthood blessing and went back home to rest. We finally got home around midnight. The next morning we went to the hospital and called all the ward leaders to let them know and they all rushed to the hospital. We had to go out to teach lessons, but received the news that she died around 6PM. Her husband was going to continue with the post mordum to find out what killed her, but her side of the family threatened that if he did that they would leave him to do all the funeral arrangements on his own. They obviously had a hand in it and didn't want to get into trouble for anything. The Husband doesn't have the money to do everything by himself so he went along and they didn't continue to do the post Mordum, but we are fairly sure that it was the medicine that killed her.

I got really upset at how this whole situation happened and angry at the hospital because they didn't really do anything to save her. I thought about how amazing America is because people die this way all the time here. I've been pretty home sick since then and have been studying a lot about liberty. In the Book of Mormon it says multiple times that the land is a land of liberty as long as they are keeping the commandments. Lehi gives his final testimony to his children that is they keep the commandments they will prosper in the land if they keep the commandments. I'm hoping that I can help the people here do that, but at every corner bad things happen. We found out that one of our more serious investigators has been drinking and last week he got drunk and went home and beat his girlfriend who he was staying with. It seems that she was wanting to get police involved and he begged us to get her to not get them involved. We tried to teach him that in the process of repentance we need to accept whatever consequences there are and he just got angry so left. It's frustrating to read all those missionaries letters about the awesome people they are teaching and stuff and right now Batsonaa is somewhat of a dead area. There are so many churches that persecute the church and whenever we get someone who could be serious they talk to a friend who will tell them false rumors about the church. We encourage them to pray to receive their answer, but they refuse.

The one bright side is that we do have a baptism set up for this week from a Nigerian woman. She is very serious about the church but lives very far away and can't make it to church unless a ward member picks her up. She doesn't have the money to take a taxi or Tro Tro to church either. We're planning on seeing her almost every day this week to see if she is really ready for the commitment of baptism and am hoping that she can follow through. I've set a personal Goal that I'll finish the book of mormon by the time I turn 1 year on mission. I'm in 2 Nephi chapter 28 now and I'll have to read about 18 pages a day to make it. I'm hoping that I'll be able to have the strength at night to keep reading if I don't finish the 18 pages in the morning. The problem with me and reading the Book of Mormon is I like to skip around. I've read every chapter in the Book of Mormon but I've only read through it from start to finish 1 time.

Anyway, How are things back home? Whats going on with Dad's job? How are the siblings? how are the rest of the family?